When you use your life as your material, there are certain hazards. What do you do about the other people who feature in the stories? Do you make them recognisable? Do you change them? What about their names?
Joanne Nelson wrote about this in Brevity when her first essay collection was published, This Is How We Leave. She’s continued to mine her life in her latest collection, My Neglected Gods.
I began by asking how you strike a balance between truth and privacy, especially as the personal essay is so concerned with real life.
I don’t think there is a right answer. We all come to our decisions based on the story, our backgrounds, the ways our families communicated, and who’s still alive.
And this isn’t just about memoir. These choices are made daily in our Facebook posts, the pictures we put on Instagram, our TikTok stories. What are we choosing to tell? Who did we get permission from?
As a memoirist I decided that if anyone was going to be skewered, it would be me. My goal in the writing was to explore myself, not to share someone else’s actions without examining what I brought to the situation. One of the benefits of letting some years pass before writing about incidents is the ability to look at the players with more compassion. It means being able to assess events from multiple angles instead of just the original wound.
In that Brevity piece, your daughters were worried that they got unequal numbers of mentions in the book.
Ha! Even the neighbour’s kid was looking for his mentions!
Have they forgiven you yet?
I think so. I’m not going to ask.
Tell me about your first collection, This Is How We Leave.
This Is How We Leave dealt with the many ways we manage our messy lives by leaving—whether that leaving is literal or through things like addiction or behaviours. All of those — literal leaving, addictions — are woven throughout generations of my family.
The heart of it (and original title) was a piece titled, “If Not For The Mess” that explored how several generations of family members had run away. The shift to a focus on leaving happened after a rejection letter I received. It suggested I give more thought to what I wanted the reader’s key takeaway to be. I felt like a lightbulb went on. I wanted readers to recognize the many ways we leave our own lives behind.
Several of the essays hinted at this, but I re-explored and restructured the work, making a through-line. And leaving isn’t just a literal walking away, it also includes how we leave ourselves behind—our dreams, our uncomfortable emotions, sometimes even our best selves.
Your new collection is My Neglected Gods, which was a Foreword Reviews pick of the day. It focuses on everyday objects that become significant or talismanic to us.
Actually, that’s a really good summary! It takes a dive into what we name (and treat) as important through vignettes. There are some serious considerations, but I hope a fair amount of humor comes through as I try to figure out what is important and why.
How did the concept arise?
After the publication of This Is How We Leave I began writing shorter pieces. At a writer’s residency (at Write On Door County) I printed everything I had and began looking at how pieces fit together. I recognised how many of the pieces focused on ritual or items symbolic with meaning. That’s another way of saying we let routines or things develop god-like status, and then fade away. With My Neglected Gods the pieces started to separate themselves into sections and I was able to see where there needed to be more and I could then have more direction in my writing.
The cover is quite arresting, with a drinking flask. Does that represent one of the significant items in the book?
I always have a water bottle with me. For the most part it’s good to have water along, right? But I’ve given it way more power than necessary. I figure I’ll always be okay if I have some water along.
How do you decide if an idea should be a poem or a prose piece?
I don’t think I know until after the first several drafts. Then the piece just works itself into a form.
You’ve written several pieces for the Vine Leaves Press ongoing series of micro-stories, 50 Give Or Take. Clearly, the very short form works well for you.
Something I enjoy is redrafting an essay into a poem and then a micro-story. Distilling an idea further and further into its heart, its center. I actually started submitting to 50 Give or Take in hope of getting myself to write fiction. But as usual when I attempt fiction the pieces were just short character sketches. Condensing longer pieces — while allowing (or encouraging) myself to add an untrue element has worked much better.
How do you manage to be so brief?
It is a constant questioning of every single word — does it need to be included?
You’ve been running a series with the Door County group that follows your book from manuscript to launch and beyond, and the surprising steps and tasks in the publishing journey, such as finding endorsement quotes. I’m sure this series has been an immense help to authors who haven’t yet been through the publication process.
This series has been really enjoyable—I’ve talked with great people, including you!
Thanks – it was fun! What do you think was the most surprising revelation for your audience?
Probably the amount of work that goes into getting a manuscript ready for publication. Many of us probably think we are done once we get that magic acceptance from a publisher.
What was the biggest surprise for you personally?
The biggest surprise for me in the series was how much fun the conversation on copy edits was. I was worried we’d never fill an hour, but we got into all kinds of things about the meaning of punctuation and how small things can make a big difference.
Never underestimate how much a copy editor could say about their job!
In the episode you and I recorded, we talked about being a good literary citizen. We probably all have our own ways of doing this. What does it mean to you?
Being a good literary citizen is similar to the pay-it-forward idea. For me it means giving back to a community that has been so helpful to me. I do this by being a reader for lit journals or small presses. I also do it every time I help someone with writing questions or editing. So many have helped me along the way—it feels good to be able to give back.
You lead workshops on writing, mindfulness and spirituality. And you have a psychotherapy practice. How do these activities complement each other?
There is a flow to all of these activities that comes from the same place. We all just want to be seen and heard, I think. Or maybe that’s not quite right—maybe we all want to be found in some way, or at least acknowledged. We explore who we are either in psychotherapy, in our writings, or in our quest to move deeper into our spirituality.
How did you become interested in this aspect of the creative life?
When I was in elementary school I remember getting praised for a short story I wrote—I think that has stayed with me, even though I don’t write short stories. And, l’ve always kept a journal. Now the big question is what to do with all the darn journals.
Where did your creative urge come from? Is it a disposition you’ve always had? Did you grow up with creative friends and family?
I don’t remember anyone, friends or family, being creative when I was growing up. Maybe there were a couple of distant cousin guitar players. Maybe my creative urge came from reading—the library was my favourite place, and reading was my favourite escape. I’ve written about how my mom and I would read in her bed with the radio on low, the dog at our feet, and a bowl of potato chips between us.
You have an MFA. What did it do for you?
It is impossible to narrow this down. The MFA definitely changed the path I was on. Instead of the focus of my day (outside of family) being about something in the area of social work, it is now about something to do with writing.
At Bennington I learned how to write creative nonfiction, and I learned to read with increased depth. And I made friends with similar interests—several who I remain very close with and feel I could call on at any time.
Also you have an MSW in social work.
I got it when I was in my 20s—a minute or two ago. Social work was definitely the right degree for me and I was a social worker for years. Even though I’m mostly retired, I supervise students in their counselling internships and I get excited about the work they are doing and the classes they are taking. I’d love to be back in school and doing it all again.
Is it still influencing the way you work, live and create today?
I think it influences the way I write. I’m always looking behind the current action for past impact. In This Is How We Leave, the writing was driven by the desire to recognize all the ways we leave painful emotions and circumstances.
Aside from writing and spiritual practices, are there other ways you unwind? Artistic? Athletic?
I’m a big walker and I like to bike in the summer. Hanging out with friends—especially on Thursday nights at our local beer garden—is the thing that makes me happiest. I’ve been dreaming about adding more artistic pursuits, but so far that remains the thing I’m going to do tomorrow.
My Neglected Gods is available here. Find Joanne on her website or contact her on Facebook.
There’s a lot more about writing in my Nail Your Novel books – find them here. If you’re curious about my own work, find novels here and my travel memoir here. And if you’re curious about what’s going on at my own writing desk, here’s my latest newsletter. You can subscribe to future updates here.
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